A University of Melbourne research project in collaboration with Green Roofs Australia is beginning to compile an inventory of Australian Green roofs.

Masters Student Lachlan Yourn says as the number of Australian green roofs continue to grow, some very important questions remain unanswered. And this is potentially hampering the success of both current and future projects.

Those questions include:

  • Just how many green roofs are there?
  • Where are they located?
  • And what are some of the products they have used?

The Westbury, Darlinghurst NSW. Photography: Mark Harper

Yourn notes that to date, no comprehensive inventory of Australian Green roofs exists. However, steps are being made to address this.

The Australian Green Roof Inventory project aims to construct a detailed, meaningful and comprehensive inventory of green roof projects throughout Australia.

Collected data will then be used to build a database and conduct an analysis of industry trends. This will be a publically available resource that could be continually updated and expanded; addressing a current knowledge gap for the horticultural industry green roof professionals and researchers.

Building such an inventory is no small task. As such the project team is requesting some help. It is seeking those who can identify locations and provide data about green roof projects they may have worked on or are familiar with.

Talking to Architecture & Design about the project’s progress, Yourn said: “Interest has been good; however responses have been a little mixed. Most contacted people are happy to help, though with work and other commitments, replying to the survey seems to end up on the back burner.

“However that said, the project has been going well. We currently have locations for over 110 projects, with extensive detail on 30 plus.

“It’s still a little early at this stage to make some conclusions. However the way the data is going there should be some nice results when it is all compiled.”

To make gathering this information simple and time efficient the project team has compiled a web-based questionnaire. The questionnaire will gather the basic information about the green roof project, but also allows for more detailed responses.

The questionnaire can be taken by following the below link:

http://app.fluidsurveys.com/s/australian-green-roof-inventory/

The inventory will be compiled by Yourn, with supervision from leading green roof academics Nicholas Williams and John Rayner.

For any project questions, inquiries or technical difficulties contact:

Lachlan Yourn

[email protected]

Nicholas Williams

[email protected]